French - Mathematician | April 29, 1854 - July 17, 1912
Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
Henri Poincare
ScienceFactsHouseMoreUpStones
Hypotheses are what we lack the least.
LeastLackHypotheses
The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.
ExperienceCreativityMindForces
It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient.
WordsGeometryMostOtherSpecies
The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law.
KnowledgeLawFactsCapableWorthy
Just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts.
ScienceFactsStonesJustMade
Science is facts.
ScienceFacts
In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind.
PeopleMindNewOldDaysSomething
Need we add that mathematicians themselves are not infallible?
NeedMathematiciansAddInfallible
Thus, they are free to replace some objects by others so long as the relations remain unchanged.
FreeLongOthersReplaceObjects
Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves, has no objective existence.
SpaceEarthKnowSayExistenceMark
One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature has had the most constant and the happiest influence on the development of mathematics.
NatureScienceHistoryMathematics
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